CHAPTER VIII

"Moreover, the problem (of feeding Great Britain) is affected by what is perhaps the most important economic change in the world since the industrial revolution, namely the alteration in the ratio of the exchange value of manufacture and food—the shift over of advantage in exchange from the side of the industrialist and manufacturer to the side of the producer of food."[27]"Before the War the towns of Europe were the luxurious and opulent centers; the rural districts were comparatively poor. To-day it is the cities of the continent that are half-starved or famine-stricken, while the farms are well-fed and relatively opulent. In Russia, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Austria; the cities perish but the peasants for the most part have a sufficiency. The cities are finding that with the breakdown of the old stability—of the transport and credit systems particularly—they cannot obtain food from the farmers. This process which we now see at work on the continent is in fact the reverse of our historical development."[28]

"Before the War the towns of Europe were the luxurious and opulent centers; the rural districts were comparatively poor. To-day it is the cities of the continent that are half-starved or famine-stricken, while the farms are well-fed and relatively opulent. In Russia, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Austria; the cities perish but the peasants for the most part have a sufficiency. The cities are finding that with the breakdown of the old stability—of the transport and credit systems particularly—they cannot obtain food from the farmers. This process which we now see at work on the continent is in fact the reverse of our historical development."[28]

But although the farmer may have sufficient food for the time—though in Russia millions are starving, due in considerable measure to the economic and political chaos of the nation—yet if this reverse process should go on, rural civilization would be reduced to that of former generations, and its advance would be possible only when the industries which furnish its material basis were revived and confidence in the medium of exchange were again established. The city owes its existence to the farm, but without the city the farm would go back to the hoe and the sickle and the "age of homespun."

I am not seeking to justify the modern city, for its economic and social weaknesses are ever increasingly apparent, but it is important that we fully realize the fact that rural progress has been chiefly due to the goods and services received in exchange from urban markets. We have already noted the tendency toward specialization in agriculture and its effect on the rural community, and that specialization has been chiefly due to markets. One of the chief factors in encouraging specialization in the growth of certain products by whole communities and sections is the fact that a larger volume of a given product ensures better marketing facilities and a better price to the producer as long as the supply is not in excess of the demand. Where there is a considerable volume of a certain product, buyers can meet their demands more easily and are attracted to it, whereas a small lot of howsoever good a product must seek a buyer. Freight rates are reduced, damage in transit is reduced, and better transportation is secured in carload and trainload than in small shipments. The middleman's charges are less if he is assured a considerable volume of business. Thus specialization makes possible a more effective system of marketing than is possible with indiscriminate production.

Not only must there be sufficient volume of a given product, but it must be so standardized with regard to varieties, grade and quantities or packages that the reputation of the goods may be established in the market. In order to secure uniformity it has been found necessary to standardize varieties and to grow a few well-known varieties of a given product which are best adapted to local conditions and to the market, rather than a number of varieties, as might be feasible if they were all sold directly on the local market.

Uniformity of grading and packing is also essential toestablish a reputation on the market. A concern like the California Fruit Growers' Exchange cannot afford to spend half a million dollars a year in advertising unless it knows that its product will be as advertised, for advertising an unreliable product may secure temporary sales, but will hardly be a profitable investment, for the value of advertising an honest product is cumulative. To secure necessary uniformity of grading and packing it has been found necessary with almost all agricultural products to have the grading and packing done at a central establishment rather than on the farm. For even assuming the honesty and good intent of the farmer, the standards and skill of different farmers will vary to such an extent that uniformity is impossible. Uniformity of grade and package must be secured at some stage of the process of marketing before the goods are bought by the retailer. Until recently much of this service has been performed by the commission men at the central markets, who have taken what was shipped to them or what their agents purchased and graded it to meet the demands of the trade, and who, of course, had to charge for their services. It has been found more profitable with most products to have the grading and packing done as near to the farm as is possible to secure a sufficient volume of business for the enterprise. Thus we have local packing houses for fruits, potatoes, poultry products, grain elevators, etc., usually located at the point of primary shipment. These local plants, as well as local creameries, canneries, and other agricultural factories and storage plants, become community institutions as they meet the needs of the farmers within the areas tributary to the centers where they are located. It is true, of course, that many of these plants are located in the open country or at mere railroad stations, and that many of them draw their patronage from severalcommunities; yet more commonly than otherwise they are located at village centers and serve the areas tributary to them. With the advent of good roads and motor trucks, the areas served by such establishments will tend to become larger, but there are many local circumstances which will tend to limit the process of centralization. Whether these plants are operated by private individuals, by stock companies, or by coöperative associations of the producers, they are essential to an effective marketing system and may greatly strengthen community life. If, however, there be two or three elevators in a little village, each operated for profit by a private owner, where all the business could be more economically handled by one concern and where the competition creates friction and suspicion, then like the rivalry between an excessive number of churches, they tend to divide the community.

Students of marketing problems seem agreed that better marketing systems will benefit the farmer through greater efficiency which will reduce the costs of the process rather than through greater profits from higher prices, and that in many lines the largest improvement is possible in the grading, packing, and shipping from the local station. This being the case, it seems obvious that the solution of the marketing problem will increasingly depend upon community action.

Better transportation and storage facilities tend to stabilize prices over large areas and to give the larger markets increasing advantage in bargaining for the farmer's products. Not that there is any concerted action upon the part of the buyers to take an undue advantage of the farmer, for there is usually keen competition between them, but inevitably the "centralization" of the buying power of the larger markets makes it possible for them to very largely determine the price, just as the large employersof labor can to a considerable extent determine the wages they will pay if labor is unorganized; for whenever there is a surplus the individual farmer must sell, while the buyer can, within limits, purchase where or from whom he chooses. Thus for the same reason that labor is forced to organize trade unions to maintain its wages and working conditions, farmers are forced to organize to market their products together and to bargain collectively for their price. This is the outstanding agricultural movement of the past decade and at the present time is so successfully challenging the established system of marketing as to command national attention. The success of such a movement depends primarily upon the solidarity and efficiency of the local units, so that collective bargaining requires the organization of the agricultural community into selling associations for its various products. The whole process encourages the economic organization of the rural community and heightens community consciousness through the effort of its members to defend their common economic interests.

The method of collective selling may vary, but in practice the coöperative selling association has proven the most satisfactory and will be discussed in the following chapter.

When the most successful farmers on the best land in Illinois lose twenty-five cents on every bushel of corn they raised, as was the case in 1921, and when it is easier for isolated farmers in Kansas to burn corn than to buy coal at the prices current, while at the same time millions of innocent women and children are starving in Europe, it seems evident that the complex system of marketing upon which modern industry and civilization has depended, is pretty well out of gear and that national and international questions must be wisely solved before it can again function. Yet in last analysis the solution of the complex problemsof marketing rests not alone with international treaties, but with the farmers' selling associations of the rural communities. If we are to have a marketing system which is truly functional, which is built on the principle of the greatest service at the lowest cost, rather than on the principle now implicit in business of sufficient service to secure the maximum of profit which the traffic will bear, then it must be a coöperative system, the primary unit of which is the local coöperative association, whose success depends upon the loyalty of its members to the coöperative principle. So coöperation is a community problem.

Nor can we expect marked progress in other phases of rural life as long as the economic question is acute. It is not true that economic prosperity in agriculture will of itself ensure the higher culture of the countryside; but it is true that so long as the farmer is compelled to devote all of his strength and time to making a competence for his family, that his attention must necessarily be fixed on economic ends and that he will have neither the means nor the time for those satisfactions of life which are possible to one with some leisure. Says "A.E.": "I believe the fading hold the heavens have over the world is due to the neglect of the economic basis of spiritual life. What profound spiritual life can there be when the social order almost forces men to battle with each other for the means of existence?"[29]For weal or woe the material existence of both farmer and townman throughout the civilized world is inextricably inter-dependent. If a better economic system is to arise it must come through the general understanding of these relations by the education of all parties and by a willingness to find satisfaction in the well-being of all rather than in the largest individual profit. Unless these attitudes can be established in the local community,how can we expect to secure harmony of interests among larger groups? Loyalty to the common good must first be developed in the local community among neighbors.

In subsequent chapters we shall have occasion to consider various forces and methods for creating this spirit of community, and we shall see that whereas the higher culture of rural life awaits a better economic system, this spirit of loyalty which is essential for coöperative organizations may be developed through various forms of community activity.

[25]See Percy Wells Bidwell, "Rural Economy in New England at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century." Trans. Comm. Acad. Arts and Sci., Vol. 20, p. 253, 1916; and E. G. Nourse, "Agricultural Economics," p. 65.

[26]See the account of Mr. A. G. Gardiner,Manchester Guardian, Weekly Edition, Feb. 6, 1920, quoted by Norman Angell in "The Fruits of Victory," p. 27: "Suddenly all this elaborate structure of economic life was swept away. Vienna, instead of being the vital center of fifty millions of people, finds itself a derelict city, with a province of six millions. It is cut off from its coal supplies, from its food supplies, from its factories, from everything that means existence. It is enveloped by tariff walls."

[27]"The Fruits of Victory," p. 12, New York, 1921.

[28]Ibid., p. 14.

[29](George William Russell), "The National Being," p. 167.

The greatest improvements in marketing are being effected through coöperation. We have indicated that willingness to work together for the common good and loyalty to this principle are essential for successful coöperative enterprises. As these same attitudes are the basis of community life, it seems obvious that to the extent that membership in coöperative associations becomes general throughout a community, the stronger will be the community life. Indeed, the very etymology of the two words,coöperate—to work together, andcommunity—having in common, indicate that community activities are essentially a form of coöperation—of working together. Inasmuch as coöperative enterprises are rapidly increasing and that they must, therefore, exercise a powerful influence upon community life, it is necessary to gain a clear idea of just what is involved in the principle of coöperation and to what types of organization the term is applicable.

In a general way there has always been a certain amount of coöperation between neighboring farmers in the exchange of work in barn-raisings, threshing, silo-filling, slaughtering, etc. Out of this have grown such coöperative organizations as threshing rings, and groups for the common ownership and use of all sorts of more expensive machinery, the coöperative ownership of sires, cow-test associations, and many other forms of organization for mutualaid in farm operations. All of these are coöperative associations in the common usage of the word coöperation, but in recent years the term has come to have a more technical meaning to denote a form of organization in contrast to the corporation or stock company, which has been the most prevalent type of business organization in recent years.

The coöperative association differs from the corporation or stock company in three essentials. First, it is democratic in its control; all true coöperative organizations employ the principle of "one man, one vote," the influence of each member of the association being equal as far as the legal control of its administration is concerned. The individual members and not the amount of stock owned controls the policy of the association. Coöperation is democracy applied to business. Second, the coöperative association is organized to secure more efficient service rather than to exact profits. This is a point upon which there is much misunderstanding upon the part of those starting coöperative enterprises and which requires further explanation. Third, the earnings or savings of the association (commonly thought of as "profits") are distributed among the members or patrons of the associationpro rataaccording to the volume of the business which they have transacted with the association, so that although its control is democratic its benefits accrue according to the amount of financial interest involved. There are certain other principles of business procedure which have been found essential to the successful operation of different kinds of coöperative associations, but these three—individual voting, service rather than profits, and pro-rating the earnings—are fundamental to all truly coöperative associations, and it is to this combination of business methods to which the term coöperation has now come to be applied in a technical sense.

Exclusive of associations formed for coöperation in the general sense of the term, i.e., for various purposes of farm operation as mentioned above, farmers' coöperative associations may be divided into three general groups: for buying, for selling, and for finance.

Coöperative buying has been most successfully developed by industrial workers in towns and cities and is commonly known as "consumers' coöperation." Starting with a few poverty-stricken workers who pooled their meager savings so that they could buy at wholesale and share in the profits of the retailer, the Rochdale system has grown until the wholesale coöperative societies of England and Scotland are probably the largest general merchandising corporations in the world, doing a business of approximately a billion dollars a year.

Coöperative buying of farm supplies, fertilizers, machinery, spraying materials, feeds, binder twine, etc., is one of the first forms of coöperative effort ordinarily undertaken by farmers' associations, and is carried on by numerous methods. In most cases the services rendered in the business management of such buying is at first largely on a voluntary basis or is but poorly paid. Only in a few sections of the country has the coöperative buying of agricultural supplies assumed a permanent or stable form of organization, and in those cases it is very frequently a department of a coöperative selling association, such as a fruit exchange. From an educational standpoint there is much to be said for commencing coöperation through organization for buying agricultural supplies, for through it farmers are trained in the principles of coöperation with the greatest possibility of advantage and the least risk of loss. There is little probability of loss in judicious coöperative purchases of carload lots with orders in hand, while in coöperative selling, unless marketingfacilities are so bad as to force him to take the risk, the chance of loss is a serious consideration to the farmer. This point has been well stated by Edwin A. Pratt, a leader of agricultural organization in England, who says:

"Inquiry into the conditions under which organization of agriculture has been successfully carried out in other countries showed that a beginning had invariably been made with the simplest form of combination for the joint purchase of agricultural necessaries. In this way the advantages of coöperation could be brought home to cultivators, who were gradually educated in the theory and practice of combination without having their suspicions aroused and their mutual distrust stimulated by proposals that they should at once alter their old conditions of trading in accordance with that system of combination for transport or sale which really constitutes not the beginning of agricultural organization, but one of the most difficult and most complicated of all its many phases."[30]

One of the allurements of coöperative buying has been to at once establish a coöperative store for a general merchandising business. The history of such stores started by granges in the 70's and 80's is instructive in this connection. A few of them survive, but most of them were failures. Only after years of experience and education in coöperative purchasing and other coöperative enterprises have the aims and methods of operating coöperative stores been sufficiently appreciated by most rural communities to ensure their successful establishment. We have already considered (page 48) some of the considerations which should govern the attempt to compete with local merchants. Generally the successful operation of a coöperative storeis more difficult for an average group of farmers to manage than the simpler forms of coöperative purchasing, or coöperative credit or selling associations.[31]Moreover, a coöperative store will seriously affect the solidarity of a small community unless a goodly majority, both from farm and village, are convinced of the necessity of competing with local retailers and will give the store their patronage. Except in the buying of agricultural supplies, which may be considered rather as the raw materials and equipment of the farm as a manufacturing business and which are therefore entitled to wholesale prices, consumers' coöperation as usually conducted through coöperative stores is not a distinctively agricultural problem, but is the same for the farmer as for the villager or industrial worker, and its desirability and limitations are determined by similar considerations.

With the change to a commercial type of farming and with the higher price of land, the American farmer has had to make larger use of borrowed capital and his business has been seriously hampered by a lack of credit facilities to meet his needs. Probably in no field of coöperative effort have the benefits been more apparent than in that of the rural credit banks which are found throughout Europe and which have thoroughly demonstrated their usefulness. Attention has been called to the fact that our best farm lands are more and more operated by tenants, and that this is inimical to strong community life. One of the reasons for this tendency has been the inability to secure long-term loans on farm real estate by the man who has little capital of his own. As lands rose in valuethis became increasingly difficult. To meet this situation a commission representative of all sections of the United States visited various countries in Europe in the spring of 1913, and as a result of their report, in 1916 Congress finally enacted the Federal Farm Loan Act establishing a system of farm land banks. Under this system one-half of the value of a farm and buildings up to $10,000 may be borrowed and paid off under the amortization plan in from five to forty years at a low rate of interest. The details of the system do not concern our present discussion, but the essential feature of the system is the local land bank through which the loans are made and collected. The local land bank is strictly a coöperative society organized to secure long-term credit facilities for its members under the terms of the federal act through the regional land banks of which each local bank is a member. Like other coöperative associations, the area in which the local bank does business is not necessarily that of a community, it may be a whole county where there are but few members, or there may be more than one bank in a single community, but more commonly it is located at a village center and tends to become a community institution.

Equally important for financing the current expenses of farming operations and to make possible the orderly marketing of crops, is the farmer's need for short-time credit. Our banking system has been developed to meet the needs of the business world, and the period for which loans can be made is too short to meet the needs of the farmer, who often requires credit for six months to a year. In some ten states legislation has been passed authorizing the formation of local credit associations, which are really local coöperative banks, but the number of credit associations established in rural communities has been insignificant, thirty-three out of a total of thirty-six being inNorth Carolina.[32]The tremendous losses suffered by American farmers during 1921 and their inability to secure sufficient credit from their local banks has shown the necessity for better short-time credit facilities, and bills are now before Congress which will enable the local land banks to also handle short-time loans in coöperation with the Federal Reserve Banks. If this is done, the amount of business done by these local banks will be greatly increased and the coöperative principle in banking will be greatly strengthened.

Coöperative selling associations have had a rapid growth in the United States during the past decade. In 1919 the federal Bureau of Markets estimated that agricultural products worth one and a half billions out of a total of nearly nineteen billion dollars sold from farms were marketed through coöperative associations, and the total has greatly increased since then. The California Fruit Growers' Exchange, probably the largest coöperative selling association, does a business of over $50,000,000 annually and has one of the most efficient distributing systems in the country.

At the present time some very ambitious programs of national organizations for coöperative marketing are being started, such as the United States Grain Growers, Inc., which is modeled after the successful Canadian Grain Growers, Inc. One of the chief obstacles to all such plans of effectively organizing the marketing of various agricultural products is the fact that a strong central organization can be developed only by the federation of local associations whose members understand the purposes of the organization and are loyal to them. The history of allcoöperative movements shows that those which have been permanently successful have arisen through the federation of strong local associations, and numerous failures of well-intentioned efforts at large-scale coöperative marketing have been due to the fact that numerous local associations cannot be organized by the parent association with any assurance that they will function effectively.

The late G. Harold Powell, for many years the successful manager of the California Fruit Growers' Exchange, in his discussion of the fundamentals of coöperation emphasizes that coöperative associations must be born of a real need:

"Among farmers, who under existing conditions are already prosperous, the need of business organization is not usually felt, even though the costs of marketing and extravagant profits of the middlemen or the railroads might be greatly reduced. They must feel the pressure of need before they can launch a successful business association. When the farmers buy their supplies at reasonable prices, and sell their products readily at a good profit, they do not feel the necessity of organization. It has been the experience of the past that they must feel the need of getting together to meet a crisis in their affairs, and the realization of the need must spring from within and not be forced upon them from without by the enthusiasm of some opportunist who seeks to unite the farmers on the principle that organization is a good thing.... In short, if an organization is to be successful, the investment of the farmer must be threatened by existing social and economic conditions before he can overcome his individualism sufficiently and can develop a fraternal spirit strong enough to pull with his neighbors in coöperative team work."[33]

The tremendous losses suffered by American agriculture in 1921 furnish exactly such a crisis as Mr. Powellsuggests, and have given the strongest impetus to the coöperative movement. But even when the necessity exists and is recognized it takes time to build up a strong coöperative association.

The successful operation of a local coöperative association is a matter of slow growth, because it requires the education of the membership in the principles both of coöperation and of marketing, and what is equally essential, the development of a willingness to sometimes forego the advantage of larger profits by individual members in order to ensure the permanent success of the association. The local association has to learn how to conduct its business just as does the individual business man, and it has to compete with individuals and firms who are in business for profit and who have the advantage of experience in the existing marketing system and the financial backing of its business connections. In the attempt to create local selling associations rapidly so as to secure a sufficient volume of business to ensure the success of large marketing enterprises, there is always a tendency to encourage the local members to believe that they will secure a considerably larger share of the consumer's dollar, and when prices are not materially better than under the old system they readily become dissatisfied and withdraw. The best authorities and advocates of coöperative marketing insist that it will be successful only to the degree that it can become more efficient than the existing system and so effect savings and make legitimate earnings, but that there is little prospect for large "profits"; indeed, that the legitimate objective of coöperation is not profits, but savings. Professor Macklin summarizes the matter as follows:

"The true coöperative organization seeks to establish and maintain a distributing system to provide adequately anddependably at minimum cost the essential marketing services of which the industry and its individual members have constant and vital need. Its justification lies in rendering these services at a lower cost and in bringing to farmers a higher proportion of the consumer's dollar."[34]

With the factors involved in successful coöperative selling associations we are not here concerned, except to insist upon the point that as the weakest link measures the strength of a chain, so the strength of the local association determines the strength or weakness of the central selling association. A joint stock company may afford more efficient management than a coöperative association, and unless the local membership is convinced of the superior equity and ultimate advantages of a strong coöperative system, there is little hope for the coöperative to compete with the stock company. Coöperation means working together, and its emphasis is more on duties and obligations than on rights and personal advantage. In coöperative enterprises the individual must be convinced that his best interest in the long run is bound up with the best interest of the whole membership, and unless he is sometimes willing to forego immediate personal advantage and unless he can learn how to work with others, sometimes without compensation or with less than he could secure otherwise, there is little chance for developing a strong organization. For coöperation is but democracy applied to certain phases of business, and, like democracy in politics or any other sphere of life, its highest sanction lies in belief and satisfaction in the collective well-being.

It seems obvious, therefore, that those attitudes which are essential for coöperation are the same which encouragecommunity life, and that where the coöperative spirit dominates, community activities will be strengthened. Whereas, on the contrary, in those localities where family, political, or personal feuds, jealousies and suspicions are rife, coöperative enterprises will be difficult and the community will be weak.

That coöperation does develop those qualities which make for better communities is attested by all who have observed its effects. As a result of his long experience Sir Horace Plunkett says:

"It is here, in furnishing opportunity for the exercise of education secured from the agricultural colleges, that the educational value of coöperative societies comes in; they act as agencies through which scientific teaching may become actual practice, not in the uncertain future, but in the living present. A coöperative association has a quality which should commend it to the social reformer—the power of evoking character; it brings to the front a new type of local leader, not the best talker, but the man whose knowledge enables him to make some solid contribution to the welfare of the community."[35]

So, likewise, a keen observer of Danish coöperation describes its influence in creating scientific and social attitudes:

"Among the indirect, but equally tangible results of coöperation, I should be inclined to put the development of mind and character among those by whom it is practised. The peasant or little farmer, who is a member of one or more of these societies, who helps to build up their success and enjoy their benefits, acquires a new outlook. The jealousies and suspicions which are in most countries so common among those who live by the land fall from him. Feeling that he has a voice in great affairs he acquires an added value and a healthy importance in his own eyes.He knows also that in his degree and according to his output he is on an equal footing with the largest producer and proportionately is doing as well. There is no longer any fear that because he is a little man he will be browbeaten or forced to accept a worse price for what he has to sell than does his rich and powerful neighbor. The skilled minds which direct his business work as zealously for him as for that important neighbor."[36]

It is interesting to note that the three highest authorities on the coöperative movement in Ireland all lay great stress on its importance as a means of community organization and value its social effects as highly as its economic benefits. Thus Sir Horace Plunkett says:

"Gradually the (coöperative) Society becomes the most important institution in the district, the most important in a social as well as an economic sense. The members feel a pride in its material expansion. They accumulate large profits, which in time become a sort of communal fund. In some cases this is used for the erection of village halls where social entertainments, concerts and dances are held, lectures delivered and libraries stored. Finally, the association assumes the character of a rural commune, where, instead of the old basis of the commune, the joint ownership of land, a new basis for union is found in the voluntary communism of effort."[37]

In the same vein Smith-Gordon and Staples in their account of the coöperative movement in Ireland, see it as the most important force for socialization because it makes the most immediate and practical appeal to men of all parties and sects and establishes a business system which develops the community attitude:

"The present individualist system which takes care of thebusiness interests of the farmer is a dividing and disintegrating force. It tends to destroy the natural associative character and to set each man against his neighbor.... But as a member of a society with interests in common with others, the individual consciously and unconsciously develops the social virtues.... The society is in miniature a community, and the community is but a part of the larger social group."[38]

George William Russell ("A.E."), the poet-prophet of Irish agriculture, bases his whole conception of a desirable polity for the Irish State upon coöperative communities, and considers coöperative societies as a prerequisite to rural organization. After describing the marked economic and social changes which have taken place in a typical Irish community as the result of coöperation, he says:

"I have tried to indicate the difference between a rural population and a rural community, between a people loosely knit together by the vague ties of a common latitude and longitude, and people who are closely knit together in an association and who form a true social organism, a true rural community, where the general will can find expression and society is malleable to the general will. I will assert that there never can be any progress in rural districts or any real prosperity without such farmers' organizations or guilds. Wherever rural prosperity is reported in any country inquire into it, and it will be found that it depends on rural organization. Wherever there is rural decay, if it is inquired into, it will be found that there was a rural population but no rural community, no organization, no guild to promote common interests and unite the countrymen in defence of them."[39]

The same observations might be made upon the effect of coöperative enterprises in solidifying ruralcommunities in the United States. It seems doubtful whether coöperative associations in the United States will develop a general social program as they have done in Ireland, Belgium, and Russia. On account of a different social inheritance and account of our facility in forming and belonging to numerous organizations, it seems probable that we will limit our coöperative societies to strictly economic functions, and will use the increased income secured through them in other organizations for social purposes.

Commercial farming is breaking down the old individualism of the farmer, for the exigencies of the economic situation are forcing him to market collectively through coöperative selling associations, and as he learns that his own best interests are bound up with those of the whole community, he becomes increasingly concerned for the common welfare; he commences to think in terms of "us" and "ours," instead of only "me" and "mine." The community becomes a reality to him.

[30]"Agricultural Organization," p. 99. London, P. S. King & Son, 1912.

[31]See Clarence Poe, "How Farmers Coöperate," Chap. III, p. 37. "Coöperative buying is good; coöperative merchandising may or may not be." New York, Orange Judd Co., 1915.

[32]V. N. Valgren and E. E. Engelbert, "The Credit Association as an Agency for Rural Short-time Credit." Department Circular 197, U. S. Dept. Agr., 1921.

[33]"Coöperation in Agriculture," pp. 22, 23. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1913.

[34]Theodore Macklin, "Efficient Marketing for Agriculture," p. 260. New York, Macmillan Co., 1921.

[35]"The Country Life Problem in the United States," p. 123.

[36]Harvey, "Denmark and the Danes," p. 146, quoted by F. C. Howe, "Denmark a Coöperative Commonwealth," p. 61.

[37]Ibid., p. 128.

[38]"Rural Reconstruction in Ireland; a Record of Coöperative Organizations." New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1919.

[39]"The National Being," p. 39.

At its beginning the United States Government gave support to education by the allotment of public lands to the states as an endowment for public schools, and although the federal government has done but little since then for primary education, the support of education has become one of the chief concerns of state and local governments. In colonial times public schools were largely confined to New England. With the settlement of the Middle West district schools were established with the aid of the government land grants. But in the South conditions were not favorable for public schools until long after the Civil War, and only in the last generation or two has public education become firmly established.

The district school, the famous "little red school-house" of the nineteenth century, was frequently the neighborhood center and the school district commonly formed a neighborhood area, particularly in hilly sections where its lines were adjusted by topography. A recent study of neighborhood areas in Otsego County, New York, shows that about half of them are identical with the school districts, chiefly on account of topography, while in Dane County, Wisconsin, more neighborhood areas are determined primarily by the school district than by any one factor.[40]Formerly the district school-house was quite frequentlyused for Sunday school or preaching services; spelling-bees and other entertainments were held from time to time; and political meetings and elections were commonly held there.

Although the district school is still a neighborhood social center in many sections, its decadence commenced at the close of the nineteenth century, the change depending upon the general progress or isolation of the community, particularly as affected by transportation. Several factors have combined to make the district school unsatisfactory to the rural community of to-day. In the older parts of the country the population has so decreased that in many districts the maintenance of a school has become exceedingly expensive, it is difficult to secure competent teachers, and there are too few pupils to make the school attractive. The better educational advantages of town and city schools have caused much dissatisfaction upon the part of the better class of farmers who wish their children to have the best possible start in life, and many of those who can afford to do so have "moved to town" to educate their children, thus making a bad matter worse for the district school. As long as roads were poor the district school was the only one possible, but with better roads, automobiles and trolleys, the consolidation of schools has proceeded rapidly in the past decade, particularly in the prairie states.

A modern school cannot be maintained at every other crossroads. Improved roads naturally radiate from the village center and hence it is the logical point for a consolidated school or high school. There are localities in isolated regions where it might be desirable to establishconsolidated schools in the open country, but in most cases where there is a natural village center, the school should be located there and the school laws should make possible the organization of the consolidated school district regardless of township or county lines. Indeed legislation has already been enacted to this end in several states and forms one of the most important movements for strengthening the rural community. Here and there are to be found consolidated schools which have been placed in the open country at the center of a township because it was the point most easily agreed upon by all the patrons, particularly where the township is an administrative unit of the school system. In some cases somewhat successful efforts are being made to have such consolidated schools serve as social centers, but it is believed that in the long run community life will flow to its natural centers and that the seeming success of such social centers in the open country, unless the neighborhood be an isolated one, will tend to weaken the communities concerned. Usually a consolidated district of this sort will contain parts of two or three community areas and the location of the school at a point between them weakens the support of the community centers to that extent. Here we encounter one of the many ways in which our artificial unit of rural government—the township—interferes with community progress.[41]

Formerly only the children of the upper classes who were preparing for college received a secondary education, but during the past generation there has been a rapid growth of public high schools which serve as the "people's colleges." At first these were found only in the cities and larger towns, but rural communities have demanded equal advantages and state and national legislation has aided them in the cost of maintenance. Federal aid for secondary education in vocational subjects, now available through the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917, has encouraged the establishment of rural high schools and has greatly increased the number giving instruction in agriculture and home economics. Hundreds of rural high schools are now giving agricultural courses better than the agricultural colleges gave twenty-five years ago.

Rural high schools with full four-year courses have been found mostly in the larger villages and towns, but the movement is now well under way to divide the period of secondary education into a junior and senior high school (the so-called "six-six" plan), and junior high schools, including the seventh to ninth grades, are being established in many smaller communities by simply adding a grade to the consolidated schools. The educational forces of the country, as expressed by statements of the U. S. Bureau of Education and the National Education Association, are now committed to the policy of consolidated rural schools wherever they are practicable and to the establishment of a sufficient number of high schools so that every rural child may attend high school and still be able to live at home. Obviously it is important from the standpoint of community development that the high schools should be placed at community centers and that where some of the communities are too small to support senior high schools that they should be located at a village whichserves as a center of what, for want of a better term, we may call "the larger community" (see pages 232-3).

One of the reasons for consolidated schools is that the objectives of rural education are changing and that country people are demanding that their children be educated for country as well as for town life. Formerly the content and method of rural education was an imitation of that of the city and inevitably made industrial, commercial, and professional occupations the ideal of the pupil. The schools of New England have done an immense service to the rest of the country but they were an important factor in depopulating many a New England town. The introduction of nature study, agriculture, and home economics is becoming general in rural schools. Educators do not desire to train rural children solely for farm life, and thus to segregate a farm class, even were that possible, but they are attempting to give equal emphasis to the values of country life so that it may prove equally attractive to the best as well as to the less efficient rural youth.

Furthermore the whole attitude of rural as well as urban education is changing from that of teaching individuals so as to equip them with intellectual tools for their personal advancement, to one of training future citizens who will attain their own best interests by useful service to the community. The curriculum and objectives of the school are rapidly becoming socialized, and as this process goes on the school will more and more become the most important single institution for creating community loyalty.

The community school, particularly the high school, no longer confines itself to the instruction of its regular pupils; it is the educational center and headquarters of the community. With the assistance of the ExtensionService of the agricultural colleges, rural high schools are holding one-week extension schools for farm men and women, and under the Smith-Hughes Act they are offering continuation short courses for the younger farmers. The progressive rural high school is taking a live interest in the one-room district schools which may be too far from the center for consolidation, and is seeking to interest their pupils in attending high schools through athletic meets, play festivals, and similar assemblages of all the schools of the community, which thus create a natural bond of interest and common enthusiasm. The principal of the high school at Oxford, N. Y., recently organized a public-speaking contest of representatives of all the country schools in his supervisory district, in connection with the annual play festival which he had established several years before. This proved to be a huge success and gave the boys and girls from the district schools new confidence in their ability of self-expression. One of the greatest needs which farmers' organizations are to-day feeling is their lack of leaders who can speak for them effectively at public gatherings and before legislative hearings in competition with men who make their living by talking. Such contests, particularly when the topics discussed deal with affairs of country life with which the children are acquainted and in which they are vitally interested, as was the case with the one at Oxford and to which much of its success was attributed, are therefore of great value and may well be substituted for the academic debates so often heard on subjects quite foreign to the child's life and beyond his real comprehension.

In many places new school buildings are being constructed with an auditorium, which may be used as a gymnasium, library room, dining room, etc., so that they may serve as social centers for the community. Where thecommunity is not large enough to afford a separate community house this is frequently the best and most economical means of meeting this need. This will be discussed further in considering community buildings.

Numerous rural high schools are conducting lyceum and entertainment courses, and some are operating motion-picture shows on Saturday nights. Where no other organization is better adapted for taking the responsibility of furnishing high-class entertainment to the community, this is a useful service. School orchestras and bands, choruses, and dramatic clubs are also valuable additions to the community life.

The successful community school will not center all of its activities in its own building, but it will take some of its talent to the country schools for local athletic and play contests, dramatic or musical entertainments, etc., and thus magnify the importance of the local school in the neighborhood, for only by acquiring a desire for these advantages will the people in the more isolated parts of the community come to interest themselves in the activities of the whole community at its village center.

It is becoming more and more apparent that if the school is really to function as it should, that it must have the active interest and support of its patrons. It is not enough that they should assemble at the annual school meeting, elect school officials, vote taxes for its maintenance, and then leave its management to the school board and teachers. It is highly desirable that every encouragement should be given toward making teaching a life profession, but as teaching becomes professionalized it tends, like every other calling, to become more or less of a bureaucracy. It is essential that educational methods should be determined by and be in charge of educators who are trained for such service, but if they get the idea,as sometimes seems unfortunately the case, that it is the business of the people to supply funds for the support of the schools and then to leave their entire operation to the teachers and superintendents, they assume an attitude which is fatal to the life of the school, for no educational system, however ideal in theory, can be effective without the sympathetic understanding and cordial support of the majority of its patrons. It is for this reason that large emphasis is being placed by progressive educators on the organization of parent-teachers associations or school improvement leagues for the discussion of school problems by parents and teachers. In many cases the parent-teachers association forms one of the chief bonds of the country community and the State of Virginia has built up a remarkable system of community organization through its Coöperative Educational League with hundreds of local leagues which interest themselves in all phases of community life.

The school is also coming to realize that although it is the institution specially created for the systematic education of the child, that much of his education is received outside the school and that certain phases of his education may be accomplished more effectively through the coöperation of the school with other institutions and agencies. Thus instead of seeking to absorb all of the time of the child and to give it all kinds of training within the school or as part of its curriculum, the school is commencing to develop methods for strengthening and coördinating the educational work of the home, the church, and of various organizations.

The teaching of agriculture has been made vital and effective by the home project in which the boy comes to appreciate the value of the principles studied at school in connection with an agricultural enterprise in raising cropsor livestock of his own on the home farm. This tends to enlist the interest of the parents, who contribute largely to the educational process. The same principle is being applied to a less extent in work in home economics, and the giving of school credit for various kinds of home work has established a community of interest between home and school. In the teaching of hygiene, and particularly with regard to sex hygiene, the school finds it difficult to establish those habits and attitudes which are as important as mere knowledge without the help and coöperation of the home. So, too, the medical inspection of school children, with the work of school nurses and clinics held at the school for children of pre-school age, stimulate the home to better health.

Because of the separation of church and state in this country we have very largely neglected all effort toward religious education in our public schools, and even ethical training has been more or less of a secondary objective until very recently. A growing appreciation of the inadequacy of the ordinary Sunday school has led to a movement for giving systematic instruction and training in religious education under church auspices at a time set apart by the school and for which school credit is given when it meets reasonable educational standards. The week-day school of religion is still in an experimental stage. It has been established longest in cities, but is now being attempted in rural communities, and if sectarian dogmatism and jealousies can be submerged, there seems every reason to hope that this may be a most important feature of our educational system.

So, too, the boys' and girls' clubs in agriculture and home economics, the boy and girl scouts, the campfires, the little mothers' leagues, the health crusades, the Y.M.C.A and Y.W.C.A., and other organizations for childrenand youth, have created new interest in certain aspects of school work and are a source of educational dynamic which progressive educators are utilizing as valuable allies.

Thus in very many ways the school is adapting its methods to meet its responsibility for developing good citizens who are loyal to the welfare of the community, and the school principal is rightly expected to be a leader in community affairs in so far as they concern the participation and interests of the school.

It is a far cry from the isolated one-room, box-type district school, with a young girl with no professional training teaching a dozen youngsters of all ages as best she can with little or no equipment, to the modern consolidated school or rural high school with all the intimate connections with the life of the whole community above described, but this difference measures one phase of the progress which has been made in recent years toward the integration of the rural community and depicts one of the most important forces involved in this process, whose influence is only commencing to be felt. How different will the life of rural communities be a generation or two hence when in most of them practically all of the parents and children will have had a high-school education, with all the broader contacts and outlook on life which that involves! We need only to study the influence of the Danish Folk High Schools[42]to visualize the outcome.

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